The start page in Crystal Reports v11 and all later versions is a web page. It pulls up dynamic web content from the Business Objects web servers each time you start the program. If you are not interested in this content or have other reasons not to want Crystal requesting a internet connection, there is a simple method of preventing it.

Because not all PC’s have an internet connection, Crystal has 2 versions of the start page. One is used if there is an internet connection and the other is used if there is no internet connection. The pages are called Start.html and OfflineStart.html. I found the files in the following folders but these may not be the same on your PC:

Version 14.x (thanks to emcgee’s comment below)
C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\win32_x86\Start Page\en

Version 12
C:\Program Files\Business Objects\BusinessObjects Enterprise 12.0\win32_x86\Start Page\en\

Version 11:
C:\Program Files\Business Objects\Crystal Reports 11\en

OfflineStart.html doesn’t look for an internet connection, so all you have to do is make a second copy of OffLineStart.html. Then you rename the original Start.html to Start.html.orig and rename the copy of OffLineStart.html to be Start.html. Now even if there is a connection available, Crystal Reports will be using a file that doesn’t request a connection. No matter which file it uses it will get a page with no internet request.

To put things back to normal you just delete the faux Start.html and then delete the ‘.orig’ from the original copy of Start.html. This will activate your dynamic content again.

Added 4.26.08:
In XI there is a check mark on the start page that says “Display online content”. Taking out this check mark will hide the information at the bottom of the page, but for some reason it does NOT eliminate the request for an internet connection. Using the method described above DOES eliminate the request. I had missed this feature altogether, so a “thank you” to Dianne Dawson, with the South Carolina Department of Mental Health for bringing it to my attention.